Posts Tagged:Urban planning

When I just looked through my notes, I realized that I apparently haven’t blogged about a great event from September 2012 where I had the unique opportunity to listen to former Vancouver city planners Ray Spaxman and Brent Toderian who shared their experiences at the Museum of Vancouver. Instead of giving a recap of their…

As Vienna’s Donauinsel (Danube Island) celebrates its 25th birthday this year, the Architekturzentrum Wien recently devoted an evening to its planning history, featuring an interesting talk by Harald Erber in which he talked about August Zottl’s (and his son Hermann Zottl’s) vision behind the island as well as alternative proposals and current development scenarios. The…

Earlier this month, I visited the Zero Emissions Cities Conference in Vienna’s City Hall which tried to answer the question how tomorrow’s smart cities can significantly reduce their carbon emissions. It offered general insights as well as presentations of specific technologies like building-integrated photovoltaics, small-scale urban wind power, LED lighting systems or thermal energy storage.…

While Austrian politics is becoming more and more of a fake democracy (whether it’s on the military referendum or the Viennese referendum), the Austrian newspaper DER STANDARD leads the way in terms of true participation. For a special issue on direct democracy it asks its readers for their ideas on articles as well as their…

This summer, the Heritage Vancouver Society organizes a lot of exciting walking tours. As I moved to Vancouver and settled in the beautiful West End just four months ago, I was excited about Saturday’s “Planning Tour of Vancouver’s West End” with Gordon Price, Director of the SFU City Program. This tour aimed at explaining some…

South East False Creek is one of Vancouver’s many great urban development projects as the city turned the Olympic Village from 2010 into a residential neighborhood that embraces modern architecture, sustainability, density, quality of life and a beautiful waterfront. Next to the historic salt building, the great public square, the cafés and shops as well…